Return to Transcripts main page
American Morning
Wreckage Found; Search for a Pedophile; British Troop Reduction; Death at the Marathon
Aired October 09, 2007 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. I'm John Roberts.
The desperate search for survivor this is morning after the wreckage of a plane carrying nine sky divers and a pilot was found overnight in the rugged mountains of Washington near Mt. Rainier. A rescue team has discovered seven bodies and is camped out at the crash site waiting for the first light to look for those still missing. The plane disappeared on Sunday night on the way from Boise, Idaho to Shelton, Washington. It's a devastating loss for a close nit community of sky divers.
AMERICAN MORNING'S Chris Lawrence is at the command center in White Pass, Washington for us this morning.
How soon do they expect, Chris, to be able to get out there and start looking?
CHRIS LAWRENCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Probably within the next three hours, John. As soon as the sun comes up, search teams will hit the ground again. It's been too dark for them to complete a full search because this area that they're looking in has some really steep terrain and some really thick brush and timber.
Now, on Sunday night these nine people were coming back from a sky diving trip in Idaho. A hunter in this area saw a low-flying aircraft and then he says he actually heard a crash. Just a few hours after that, the sky diver's home base reported they had not arrived on time, and they lost all communication. Within about two hours, they had launched a search and throughout the day yesterday, you had planes flying overhead. You had rescue personnel on the ground.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The search teams were up in the areas with the coordinates we were provided with to them. They did smell an odor of fuel, and they did follow that odor, and came across the wreckage.
LAWRENCE: Yes. That's exactly what they found was wreckage. They found half the plane. The tail section of the plane has been completely snapped off. They still haven't found that, and from all accounts, it looks as if this plane crashed at a fairly high speed.
John.
ROBERTS: Chris, I know that they only had one, I believe, eyewitness that saw the plane going down. Do they have any information that the plane might have broken apart before it hit the ground and then therefore, that tail section may be a substantial distance away or do they think it could be nearby?
LAWRENCE: Right now we don't know. We know that the plane was found just about a few hundred yards from its last radar ping. That's how they kind of narrowed their search using this one eyewitness account and the last radar ping and apparently the plane was found very close to that. What happened to it in the air as it crashed, still don't know.
ROBERTS: All right. Well, something that they'll probably get some more answers to as the sun begins to come up. Chris Lawrence for us this morning in White Pass, Washington. Chris, we'll check back in with you.
Kiran.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: We're getting a first look now at the bridge that will replace the collapsed I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. This is the look at the original bridge. It was a steel eight-lane span that crossed the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis; this bridge built 40 years ago. Who could forget the chaos and terror back on August 1st when that bridge collapsed killing 13 people? You saw cars, about 100 cars just smashed as the bridge pancaked in just seconds.
Here is the design for the new bridge. It's called a concrete box girder bridge. It's two spans, 500 feet long, and it has state of the art sensors that are built right into the deck. Construction could begin as early as next month and be done by Christmas next year. The winning bid, by the way, for the new bridge, $234 million.
John.
ROBERTS: International police have begun an unprecedented worldwide search for a pedophile who thought he had disguised himself digitally. His face was altered in the computer pictures but police used a new technology to un-twirl the image and reveal his face. Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING we asked Anders Persson who is the Interpol agent working on this case why they're looking for this guy.
ANDERS PERSSON: He's a child molester and we have been seeing him criminality on the pictures we've received from the German police and we have for several, a long time now trying to identify him and without success. So finally, instead of just doing nothing, we decided we'd go public and we'll ask the public via the media to step forward and tell us who this guy is.
ROBERTS: Interpol says more than 200 tips had been received from people. They haven't caught the man yet but Persson is hopeful that his friends, family, neighbors, someone who knows him will come forward, now that his face has been unswirled.
Reports of a path spying on al Qaeda ruined by a government leak. "The Washington Post" is reporting today that the Bush administration was tipped off days ahead of time to the latest Osama Bin Laden video message. A private intelligence firm cracked al Qaeda's internet security and told the White House about it, stressing the need to keep the information secret until the tape became public. But the firm says within hours of them releasing that, an audio transcript of the tape was leaked to news networks, which then tipped off al Qaeda that it had a flaw in its security, a flaw that al Qaeda apparently fixed.
Debate over the National Security Agency's terrorist surveillance program will be front and center on Capitol Hill today. House democrats are planning to introduce a bill that would restrict some of the NSA spying to communications companies, force the justice department to reveal details of all warrantless electronic surveillance since 9/11, place permanent taps on the nation's internet and telephones infrastructure.
Britain is cutting its force in Iraq in half, and could pull all of its troops out by the end of next year. British forces will go down to 2,500 by the spring of '08. A decision on a final pullout will be made then. There were 46,000 British troops in Iraq during the invasion of March 2003.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, former Mexican President Vicente Fox tells Larry King that he was always opposed to the invasion of Iraq. Last night he also talked about the need for immigration reform, saying that Mexicans who have jobs in America should be allowed in.
VICENTE FOX, FORMER MEXICAN PRESIDENT: For construction, they are hired to pick up apples in Washington or crop the vegetables in California. I mean, I saw them working, building luxurious hotels in Vegas by the hundreds, I mean 90 percent, when you need them here. This economy needs 400,000 new jobs every year coming from abroad because you don't have them here.
CHETRY: Fox says he's absolute lay against building a wall between Mexico and the U.S. He's currently, by the way, on a tour of the U.S. to promote his autobiography.
Tighter border security may mean rotting produce in the fields, the loss of millions of dollars and higher prices in the supermarket. Farmers in northern California say they just don't have enough workers to pick their crops because of the restrictions on immigrants.
Check out these flames. This is a fire that was raging at a luxury high-rise overnight in Jersey City, New Jersey. It is now under control but at one point flames to be seen across the river in Manhattan. The building was still under construction. Did not have a water source at the 17th floor where the fire was burning. That's why it made it difficult for firefighters to get a handle on it at first. In the end, no one was hurt.
There are new details this morning about what may have triggered a shooting rampage in Crandon, Wisconsin. A friend of the deputy sheriff who shot and killed six people at a party early Sunday says that Tyler Peterson was enraged after being rebuffed by his ex- girlfriend.
J.B. VAN HOLLEN, WISCONSIN ATTORNEY GENERAL: An argument ensued. Peterson then left the building, retrieved a rifle from his truck, forcibly entered the apartment, and began to open fire. Approximately 30 rounds were fired inside the apartment.
CHETRY: Peterson was later killed in a shootout with police. One shooting victim is still in the hospital.
And a massive illegal immigration sweep in southern California. Immigration and customs enforcement agents arrested 1,300 illegal immigrants. It was a three-month-long investigation. Most of the suspects street gang members with criminal records and some of them are convicted sex offenders. The feds say more than 600 of those arrested have already been deported.
Well, the game itself was pretty ugly. The outcome though was a thing of beauty for the Dallas Cowboys, the Cowboys scoring nine points in the final 20 seconds Monday night, for a stunning comeback victory, 25-24 over the Buffalo Bills. Cowboys' quarterback Tony Romo through a club record of five interceptions, two of them returned for touchdowns. The wind keeps the Cowboys' undefeated season alive. They're 5-0. Sadly though, it was the Buffalo Bills return to Monday Night Football for the first time since 1994 and well, look what happened.
The Indians are moving on to face the Red Sox and the Yankees have to face their boss now. Grady Sizemore led off the game with a home run and the Indians held on for a 6-4 win, eliminating the Yankees and that means it could very well be the last game for Yankees' manager Joe Torre. Yankee's owner George Steinbrenner reportedly said that he would not bring Torre back next season if the Yankees lost to the Indians. You asked, John, what's going to become of him if that reporting is correct. Steinbrenner's going to cut him loose.
ROBERTS: Yeah, but he's made threats in the past. We'll see.
Nine minutes after the hour. Rob Marciano is on the CNN weather desk this morning tracking extreme weather for us.
What's this? Oh, it's the Yankees. Rob, I thought you were going to be in the wall here, but I'm seeing the Yankees lose to the Indians.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Nice.
ROBERTS: What's that all about?
MARCIANO: Temperatures yesterday near record highs at game time and word this morning that Joe Torre is blaming the Yankees' demise on global warming.
ROBERTS: So is it actually going to rain today in New York, Rob or is it just going to be a river of tears actually from there in Atlanta all the way up here in?
MARCIANO: It could be mass flooding as a matter of fact up the I-95 corridor, John. ROBERTS: I was a Yankees fan, by the way.
MARCIANO: Yes. I'm not alone and it's been a long seven years. Thank you, John.
We move along to the top story weather-wise, and that is somewhat related to what happened at Yankee's stadium last night, record heat temperatures across much of the northeast. Let's go to it and show you some of these highs are in some cases at JFK, 75 degrees. That was the old record. That's not the average. The average in the 60s. 90, blew it out by 15 degrees. Dulles and D.C., 92 degrees. You may hit similar marks later on today. There is a bit of a cool front right there. Actually, it's heading this way. New York will be a little bit cooler today. But Albany, Boston, you're already feeling the cool temperatures. A little bit of rain in upstate New York but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. A stronger cool front sliding across parts of the Midwest today. That may spawn some showers and thunderstorms as it moves to the east towards the I-95 corridor as well. A little sliver of cool air trying to punch down from Canada into parts of the upper Midwest here. This is in some cases snow so we're going to see drastically cooler temperatures especially across the western Great Lakes over the next couple of days. 76 degrees in Chicago. But 53 in Minneapolis. Temperatures in Chicago should probably be down to the 50s. Cubbies not having much luck there either but the ALCS and National League Championship Series all set. Best of luck to all those teams.
ROBERTS: So what's your prediction? Is Torre gone?
MARCIANO: Should have been gone a long time ago.
ROBERTS: Ooh! OK. Rob Marciano this morning for us. Rob, thanks.
Kiran.
CHETRY: Well, why didn't you think of this before? You heard about the OnStar system in the GM cars. It's the satellite navigation. It gives you directions, unlocks your car or as we've heard in the commercials, sometimes they call police when you're in an emergency. Well now, GM is enabling OnStar in some of the newer models to help catch a thief by slowly stopping a stolen car, even telling the driver to pull over because police are watching. It's going into the new GM cars for the 2009 model year.
A Phoenix man once thrown in jail for refusing to wear a mask while infected with tuberculosis has left the country. It's a story we've been following here. It tops your Quick Hits now. Overnight the attorney for Robert Daniels says her client is in Russia. Daniels was recently released from the Maricopa County sheriff's medical ward after doctors found his TB was no longer contagious. He did have surgery. He's still facing possible criminal charges for not wearing the mask after doctors diagnosed him.
A demand for cash, $8 million per life loss from the Iraqi government over the shooting involving Blackwater contract workers. Iraq says 17 people were killed. Blackwater says its workers were fired on first and now Iraq wants the U.S. government to break its contract with Blackwater within six months.
Still ahead, one on one with Richard Gere. We talked about the current crisis in Myanmar. We also talked about China and the upcoming Olympics. Would a boycott make a difference when it comes to human rights abuses in China? We're going to talk much more about that with Richard Gere just ahead.
Also, his family says he was given the all clear to run in Sunday's marathon despite a heart condition. Did the heat and humidity contribute to his death? We're going to talk to Dr. Sanjay Gupta, up next on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: ... are going to keep on rising. Your "Quick Hits" now. According to some economists who say we haven't seen the full impact of ethanol. Increased demand for ethanol has raise the price of corn which in turn led to higher prices for meat and dairy by raising the price of animal feed. Grain prices also rising as less grain is being produced to make more room for corn.
Tighter border security is leading to rotten fruit. Farmers in northern California say they're having trouble finding workers to pick the fruit and that could lead to higher produce prices.
There's also a shortage of bumble bees. Several species of bumble bees have become recently more and more rare. It's also coupled with the mysterious disappearance of honey bee colonies and that could mean a major problem. Honey bees pollinate about 15 percent of the crops grown in the United States.
John.
ROBERTS: Coming up now to 17 minutes after the hour. We have been following the tragic results from the Chicago marathon. One runner died on the course as he ran with his wife on Sunday. The autopsy results are in now on 35 year old Chad Schieber. He's a police officer from Midland, Michigan. He collapsed in near record heat for that marathon day but that's not the whole story. Our chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta here to tell us more.
So what was it that actually took this fellow's life?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there was an autopsy performed. A couple things that we do know is that it was at mile 19. We know that he collapsed. It was witnessed by a lot of witnesses and he appeared to have died instantaneously. It was 88 degrees so it was hot out there but it doesn't appear to be a heat- related illness. Rather it was something known as mitral valve prolapse. That may have been something that people heard of, John, but I wanted to show you here because I think this tells the picture. Typically, you have four chambers in the heart. The left atrium is over here and actually pushes blood down into the left ventricle and that blood is supposed to go out through the aortic valve into your aorta and then supply the rest of your body. And in Chad's case, Chad Schieber's case, what happened is this mitral valve doesn't close all the way as you can see here and so some blood actually goes back into the left atrium and that doesn't allow all the blood to actually be circulated through the rest of his body. Most of the time it's not going to be a problem. Day-to-day activity not really a problem. In a marathon, mile 19, as I mentioned, so getting close to the end, it appears to have been a real problem.
ROBERTS: So what is it about that that would cause sudden cardiac death?
GUPTA: Well what happens is he's simply not getting enough blood flow to the rest of his body anymore. This problem of a little bit of blood sort of pushing back into the left atrium is greatly amplified all the sudden by this incredible stress that he's placed on his body. Add to that a little bit of dehydration which also decreases the amount of blood flow to the rest of your body and suddenly you've got a problem.
As I mentioned John again, for a lot of people this isn't a problem. Because they'll live with it but there are certain symptoms they may look for day-to-day. About less than two percent have this. heart palpitations for example might be something. Slight shortness of breath from time to time could also be a symptom. There are things like this that you often see sometimes when someone has mitral valve prolapse. But again, unless they're actually stressing themselves, they may have no symptoms at all and may not know that they have it.
ROBERTS: And also pretty easy to diagnosis with a simple stethoscope.
GUPTA: You can actually listen to the heart and hear a little click or a little regurge they call it.
ROBERTS: So you're training for the upcoming New York marathon which is on November 4th of this year. Typically the temperatures are between 55 and 63 degrees but with the fall of crazy weather you don't know what it's going to be like. What special precautions do people have to take when training for that? What concerns do they have if the temperature happens to be above where it normally is?
GUPTA: Well you know and one thing to point out is you can get heat stroke or heat exhaustion even with temperatures that are that cool. You can raise your body temperature over 40 degrees Celsius, which is about 104 degrees, even cool temperatures if you're not careful. If you don't hydrate yourself you're not encouraging your body's cooling mechanisms for example so heat stroke is a concern. Hyponitremia is one of the big concerns. How do you hydrate during these races?
ROBERTS: Lack of salt.
GUPTA: Lack of salt. You drink too much fluid and your salt levels go down. People say you should drink only when you're thirsty, other people say you should drink before you're thirsty. You've got to make sure you hydrate properly as well. ROBERTS: All right. Sanjay Gupta thanks very much.
By the way, if you have questions for Dr. Gupta about exercising in extreme conditions, go to CNN.com/am. Sanjay is going to be back in our next hour to answer those questions. So if you want to know something right now about exercising in extreme conditions, go on the website, send in your question and Sanjay will be back next hour to answer it and of course we have his mail bag coming up this Thursday as always.
Kiran.
CHETRY: All right. Well it's an airline flight, not a fashion show but yet another person was told by Southwest Airlines employees that his clothes were not appropriate to fly. We're going to talk more about that still ahead.
Also actor Richard Gere, a long time follower of the Dalai Lama. I had a chance to talk to him about what he's learned from his faith and from his spiritual leader. He also weighs in on some of the current events happening around the world, including China, as well as the demonstrations in Myanmar, ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHETRY: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING.
The Dalai Lama begins a three-week visit to the United States today, including a stop at the U.S. capital, where he's going to be awarded the congressional gold medal, the highest civilian honor. President Bush is expected at the ceremony, the first time a U.S. president will appear with the Dalai Lama at a public event.
I recently sat down with actor Richard Gere to talk about China, the upcoming Olympics there and the negative reaction from the Chinese to the Dalai Lama's recognition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD GERE, ACTOR: One simple nonviolent monk to create this kind of extraordinary reaction from this huge country of China, what do they have to be afraid of? And I think we have to look to that.
CHETRY: Have you thought about it? What do they have to be afraid of?
GERE: The truth. It's always the truth. The only way you can hold power is through control, and the use of threat and the use of violence to control anyone who questions authority and power, obviously you're doomed.
The recent recall of Chinese products, they reacted incredibly powerfully to that, and I must say not just defensively but they said no, no, no, very meekly, we're going to take care of this. Unfortunately they killed a few people over this. You don't just go killing people, and that's still part of the Chinese mentality as we see in Burma as well.
CHETRY: What is the message that the world needs to take away from what's been going on in Myanmar?
GERE: Don't lose sight. Don't lose sight that these countries still are totalitarian dictatorships who resort to violence to control. And that's not the way of the world. That's not the way to greatness. We should not be dealing with them as equal partners.
CHETRY: What should the international community do as China gets to the Olympics?
GERE: Well, I'm not an isolationist in any way. I am not -- I have no problem with sanctions, but not about isolating.
CHETRY: It was interesting that the Dalai Lama's special envoy said that discussions between China and Tibet are at a point where if there is political will on both sides, we have the opportunity to finally resolve this issue.
GERE: Yes, it's totally resolvable and won't take that much. The same impulse that China has towards greatness, that same impulse is the one that can manifest generosity toward the Tibetans. It's the same impulse towards doing the right thing.
CHETRY: Do you see a day where the Dalai Lama can return to Tibet?
GERE: Yes, all it takes is for the Chinese to say, we really have nothing to fear from this nonviolent man, who has an enormous nonviolent effect on other people. In fact, he may well be our best partner in achieving the greatness that we want to achieve. And as soon as that click is made in the Chinese mind, this can change overnight.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: And Richard Gere believes so strongly in Tibet's cultural survival that earlier this year he appeared before Congress to make an appeal for Tibet's autonomy along with the Dalai Lama's special envoy.
ROBERTS: Totally committed to the issue.
CHETRY: He is.
ROBERTS: A look at a story coming up in our next half hour that you just can't miss. Hope you caught it last night. Lou Dobbs, after three weeks off, back in the saddle again. We'll tell you, he was on fire last night. He was like a tiger who had been kept in a cage for three weeks and suddenly somebody opened the door.
CHETRY: Well, it's certainly good to have him back. He was recovering from tonsillitis. And Dr. Sanjay Gupta's going to talk a little bit more about why more and more adults it seems are suffering with tonsillitis. You remember you were a kid and you got them taken out after a lot of sore throats.
ROBERTS: It was only three days maybe. Three weeks so obviously complications when folks get a little bit older and Dr. Sanjay Gupta will tell us a little bit more about that, because there's a lot more of this going on.
That story and today's headlines when AMERICAN MORNING returns and there's this.
ANNOUNCER: Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING, caught in the act.
A suspected robber makes a run for it, jumping from three stories up. Meet the news photographer who snapped the shots, then helped make the collar. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN ROBERTS, CNN ANCHOR: Dawn breaking in Pittsburgh this morning, thanks to our friends at WPXI for that picture of the downtown area. 69 degrees right now, going up to a high of 79 and like most of the eastern part of the country, thunderstorms possible today as that cold front starts to sweep across the nation and sweep out some of this hot, humid weather that we've had for the last few weeks.
KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Maybe it will feel more like October 9th, which it is today although it felt more like August 9th.
ROBERTS: Welcome back to AMERICAN MORNING. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Roberts.
CHETRY: And I'm Kiran Chetry. Glad you're with us today.
We start off with some news that could mean that some of your favorite TV shows are in jeopardy, a potential Hollywood writers' strike. Well, the Writer's Guild of America is in talks with major studios on a contract but the contract does expire October 31st and if no deal is reached, a strike or a lockout is possible. While most shows do have enough episodes taped to last awhile, they could run out in early 2008. Among the issues in the negotiations, writers want more money for DVD sales as well as other forms of distribution, like cell phones.
Well, the runner who died during the Chicago marathon may have died from a heart defect. According to an autopsy, at least. Chad Schieber's death not related to the heat during Sunday's race. Marathon organizers are still under fire about how they prepared for the near record heat that forced them to cancel the race four hours in. Forced hundreds of runners to drop out. Organizers say that part of the problem was runners using water to cool off, rather than drink. They admit though that there was not enough water early on. Some are saying this morning that this may have hurt Chicago's dreams of hosting the 2016 Olympics.
If you have some questions for Sanjay Gupta about exercising in extreme conditions, go to CNN.com/am. Sanjay will answer your questions 8:30 a.m. Eastern on AMERICAN MORNING.
ROBERTS: Also new this morning, deadly car bombs going off in Baghdad. At least 12 people have been killed, dozens more injured. These are pictures from the worst incident. The bomb went off in central Baghdad's Kylani Square. The bombings also hitting the northern city of Baji this morning. At least 22 people killed there. A local police chief survived one of those attacks.
Iraq wants $136 million in damages from Blackwater U.S.A., the private security contractor. That's $8 million for each family of the 17 victims they say Blackwater security guards killed last month in Baghdad. Iraq also wants the U.S. government to stop doing business with Blackwater, wants the company out of the country in six months.
More than 60 people are dead in Vietnam today from the worst flooding in decades. The crisis is growing since last week's typhoon. People are cut off from food and water. At least 6,000 homes are destroyed. More than 100,000 now flooded.
CHETRY: Gay couples will have legal protection in Oregon come January 1st. An attempt to block Oregon's domestic partnership law failed last night. The law does not support gay marriage but gives same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual couples such as when it comes to inheritance, child custody, joint tax filing, and hospital visitation.
ROBERTS: Another clothing incident for Southwest Airlines. Last week a passenger wearing a t-shirt with a somewhat off-color joke about his fishing prowess was told that he couldn't board the flight while wearing it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE WINIECKI, SOUTHWEST PASSENGER: She said "sir, either you turn your shirt inside out or change it or I'm going to have to ask you to come off the plane." So to undress in front of 132 people to put a new shirt on, it's unbelievable embarrassment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERTS: Southwest says it plans to apologize to the man but at least two women recently complained they were told to cover up by Southwest employees who thought they were dressed too sexy.
CHETRY: So, we want to know what you think. Should airlines be the fashion police? Cast your vote at CNN.com/am. Right now, our Quick Vote poll, 31 percent of you say yes while 69 percent say that the airlines should not be kicking people off planes if they don't think what they're wearing is appropriate.
ROBERTS: Turning 34 minutes after the hour. For the last few weeks one of our favorite faces on CNN has been missing in the evenings, our own Lou Dobbs, recovering from a tonsillectomy. Last night, Wolf Blitzer welcomed Lou back on the air.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LOU DOBBS, CNN, ANCHOR: I want to say thank you to all of you who sent your best wishes for a speedy recovery from that little stay with my tonsillectomy, and unaccustomed as I am to not being able to speak for awhile, we thank you very much. I appreciate it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: I feel for you. That would be torture.
ROBERTS: By the end of the show, he was beginning to get a little bit hoarse there.
CHETRY: I bet you. It takes a little bit of time. How rare is it anyway for an adult to have the procedure that Lou had and what is recovery like? CNN's chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta paying us a house call right now. Thanks for being with us.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN, CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure.
CHETRY: You know, you always associate getting your tonsils out or at least back in the day with being a kid.
GUPTA: Yes and that's the way it was for a long time. But about a third of tonsillectomies are now performed on adults. So, the numbers have changed a bit, the demographics. By the way, the tonsils are the two things that are on either side of your throat in the back, not to be confused with the uvula which is the thing that sort of hangs right down in the middle of your throat. They are responsible for filtering out bacteria and viruses, for fighting infections off. They actual make antibodies but sometimes they can get infected themselves and they can get inflamed, that's called tonsillitis.
There are several symptoms, which people can have, children and adults as far as when these tonsils get inflamed, sometimes they can get discolored. They can turn red, white or yellow. You can actually see that. People might have a voice change which I think Lou did have for some time, sore throat, swollen neck glands, fever, bad breath, all these sort of things may be indicative of tonsillitis. But as you mentioned Kiran, accurately, you know, for a long time it was mainly kids. Kids who recover in about four to five days, teenagers about seven to ten days, adults could take 10 to 20 days. They just don't recover as fast as kids do but they're getting tonsillectomies more as kids get them less. We recognize the value of tonsils. They don't take them out as readily as they use to.
CHETRY: So, what the first line of defense they try to do is give you antibiotics.
GUPTA: Yes. If you have a true infection of the tonsils, again, which are designed to fight infection. But they themselves get infected then self-care, antibiotics. But really now doctors wait until it becomes a problem with breathing or if it becomes a problem with some of the things I just mentioned that's only when they'll start to actually think about taking out the tonsils themselves.
ROBERTS: So, other than the fact it takes twice as long for an adult to recover than it does a child. Any other complications from waiting a longer time to get the tonsils out?
GUPTA: Not really. We asked that same question and one thing is that it may be difficult to eat. You know, it's a sore. You're just uncomfortable. You know, Lou probably lost some weight there. It looked like he's a little thinner.
CHETRY: He did look thinner.
GUPTA: Yes. So, you're just uncomfortable. There's no problem though in waiting except that it's just uncomfortable. The tonsils can get quite inflamed if they get to the point where they start to interfere with breathing because they are mechanically obstructing your airway, then obviously they need to come out.
CHETRY: Well, we're glad he's back. He looks as good as new.
GUPTA: He looks great. Yes. He'll be happy I think that he had those out. Those symptoms can be pretty awful.
ROBERTS: He was ripping it up last night, too.
GUPTA: He hadn't spoken in a while so he was ready to go.
ROBERTS: You can tell he was happy to be back. Sanjay, thanks. We'll see you again soon.
A newspaper photographer helps police catch a suspected thief after the perp jumps off a third story balcony. And there's a lot more to this story behind this image. The photographer joins us live to tell it. That's coming up on AMERICAN MORNING.
CHETRY: A major utility settles an 8-year-old lawsuit with the Environmental Protection Agency. Your "Quick Hits" now. American Electric Power will spend about $1.6 billion to improve its plants to reduce emissions. The EPA sued the company back in 1999 for trying to get around a rule that would have required the company to update its plant.
Well, there it is, the world's biggest diamond or is it? Was it a hoax? A mining businessman claimed to have found the world's biggest diamond, 6,000 carats in South Africa. But then after a series of bizarre events, the diamond expert who was supposed to verify the claim now says that the diamond is actually just a polished lump of resin.
Well, this thing is real. This is a giant pumpkin. It weighed in at 1,524 pounds. It was a pumpkin festival in Half Moon Bay, California. That's 14-month-old John Price, how cute sitting on top of the pumpkin. Thad Star grew it. And his prize is $6 for each pound, which means he got $9,144 bucks for growing that pumpkin. Congratulations. 41 minutes past the hour now.
Toss to Rob Marciano. What do you think? A lot of pumpkin pie for the holidays.
ROB MARCIANO, CNN, METEOROLOGIST: Yes. At six bucks a pound, that's the price of a cheap steak or maybe a piece of pork. That's not bad, not bad cooking there. No frost on the pumpkins for sure across the northeast. Look at these record highs, showed you a bunch across in and around the New York City area and down towards Philly.
Midwest getting into the act yesterday as well. 91 in Indianapolis that was an all-time record high for the month of October. Detroit, Michigan, 90. South Bend, Indiana, 88. Cleveland, Ohio, Erie, New York, everybody getting in the act here. There is some relief and also just a getting a little back to normal here on the weather map today. It's still though quite a bit of warmth ahead of this front that's slowly pushing across the Appalachian Mountains. There's also kind of back door cool front that will cool off parts of New England, and may cool off New York a little bit today but this is going to be main feature that cools everybody off and another secondary cool front drops down across the Western Great Lakes over the next few days.
We'll see Chicago's temperature go from well above average, which was over the weekend to well below average as we head toward the middle part of this week. Also, pretty decent storm heading into the Pacific Northwest will drive rain and wind all the way down lightly into Central California. That's an unusually strong system for this time of year. Mother nature does that as we transition from summer to winter. 76 in Chicago today. It will be 79 degrees in New York City. 53 degrees in Minneapolis. But look how the cool air begins to drive down to the south tomorrow. 56 for a high temperature in Chicago. So if you are tired of the summer in October, John, just be patient. It will be fall sometime soon. Back out to you.
ROBERTS: All right. Haven't quite had enough warm weather just yet but...
MARCIANO: You'll love it.
ROBERTS: Within the next week or so. Rob, thanks.
MARCIANO: All right. We'll see you.
ROBERTS: Coming up to 43 minutes after the hour. Let's take a look at today's top headlines.
At first light, rescuers will begin searching for possible survivors of a plane crash near Mt. Rainier in Washington. Nine skydivers and a pilot were on board. Seven bodies were found in the wreckage overnight but the tail section of the aircraft is still missing.
A first look at the new design for a bridge that will replace the collapse I-35W bridge in Minneapolis. It's called a concrete box guarder bridge, two spans, 500 feet long with state of the art sensors built into the deck.
And Interpol asking everyone in the world, have you seen this man? The man is a wanted pedophile who appears in about 200 images with as many as 12 different young boys. After using special technology to unwire his face from the pictures, Interpol is hoping that someone who knows him will come forward and identify him.
CHETRY: More free music topping your "Quick Hits" now. I told you about the band Radiohead offering its album on-line or free or whatever you may want to pay for it. Now, Oasis and Jamiroquia may follow suit, according to the "Telegraph" of London. Those two groups like Radiohead are not signed with major labels.
Well, first TV and now music. TiVo is teaming up with Rap City to offer about 4 million songs. they can be played on a subscriber's computer at any time. TiVo is trying to stay ahead of cable companies that already offer music on digital music recorders.
ROBERTS: Coming up on AMERICAN MORNING. Caught in the act. A suspected robber makes a run for it, jumping from three stories up. Meet the news photographer who snapped the shots, then helped make the collar. Ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: 47 minutes after the hour. Welcome back to the most news in the morning. "Quick Hits" starts with a shocking e-mail scam to be on the lookout for. It claims to be from a hitman who said he's had a change of heart, well certainly will have a change of heart and call off a hit on you if you send him $8,000. American businesses will reportedly lose $7.5 billion this year because of fantasy football. An outplacement firm came up with that number, saying that more than 13 million players are spending ten minutes a day during work managing their fantasy teams.
And if you're like most Americans you spend more time with your computer than with your significant other. 64 percent of people confessed to that this year and 84 percent say their relationship is growing. That's the relationship with their computer. That's according to a survey conducted by Support Soft. Kiran, you're asking what are you getting for Valentine's Day, that would be your computer?
CHETRY: Yes. You get your computer something nice, maybe a new mouse, backup hard drive. Who knows?
48 minutes past the hour now. Some top stories on today's political ticker. Fred Thompson is prepping for his first debate with the other Republican candidates this afternoon. It will take place in Dearborn, Michigan. Thompson has been practicing for two weeks at his headquarters in McClain, Virginia.
President Bush will be touting the successes of his no child left behind program at a White House Rose Garden event this afternoon. The president is expected to talk about across the board improvements in fourth and eighth grade reading and math.
Idaho's Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch may decide to run for Larry Craig's senate seat. He scheduled multiple announcements across the state today. Craig says he'll finish out his term despite losing an appeal to over turn his guilty plea over a bathroom sex sting.
And Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama campaigning in New Hampshire today, where he says he'll get results in reducing Greenhouse gases. He says he'll put a cap on carbon emissions.
Find out all of today's political news around the clock at CNN.com/ticker. John.
ROBERTS: 11 minutes after the hour now. Caught in a flash. Police in Lewiston, Maine flushed out a suspect wanted for stealing a car. He then jumps like Superman, the cop said from the third balcony. A news photographer said to cover the story captured it all and then got into the story, helping the police make the arrest. Russ Dillingham is that photographer from the "Lewiston Sun Journal" in Maine and he joins us now this morning. Good morning to you, Russ.
RUSS DILLINGHAM, PHOTOGRAPHER, LEWISTON SUN JOURNAL: Good morning, sir.
ROBERTS: Thanks for coming down. Appreciate it.
So, you're a photographer, 25 years experience, you're out there, you're listening to the police scanner. You hear about this incident, you rushed to the scene. We got some pictures to show here. What happened during that time?
DILLINGHAM: Well, like I've been to these 100 times before, you go and you hope something happens and just wanted to give credit to Adam Higgins, the Lewiston detective sergeant who basically broke this case and spotted the guy.
ROBERTS: So, you see him up there on the third floor. He looks like he's going to leap and you catch some, I guess with your motor drive, you catch a sequence of him coming down here. What happened immediately after that?
DILLINGHAM: Well, he rolled over on the other side of the roof, couldn't see him so I proceeded to run around the side and noticed that there was no police around and he took off running. At that point, Adam Higgins started yelling "tackle him, tackle him!"
ROBERTS: So, the police were yelling at you, saying hey, Russ, get involved here, drop the camera, go after the guy.
DILLINGHAM: And that's what I did.
ROBERTS: People might say wait a minute what is a photojournalist doing here getting involved in effecting a police arrest. Maine statute says, according to a section of the Maine legal statute, "a citizen is obliged to assist police in the capture of a suspect or help prevent one's escape when ordered to do so by an officer." Did you know about that statute at that time?
DILLINGHAM: I had no idea but I did know about a statute in the National Press Photographer's Association by-laws that says I'm not supposed to get involved in any of these types of scenes.
ROBERTS: Right, so what do you say to people who say Russ, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be the impartial observer? DILLINGHAM: Right. How could I live with myself if the guy took off, jumped into a car, and ran over a kid, and killed him or something.
ROBERTS: Right. So you tackled him. The police came up afterwards and put the cuffs on him and I guess you thought you were done with it at that point. Right?
DILLINGHAM: Yes. Pretty much.
ROBERTS: Until that weekend. The guy contacted you.
DILLINGHAM: Yes. He gave me a call and just wanted to talk to me and ask me why the heck I tackled him.
ROBERTS: We've actually got a little bit of that phone conversation because you were astute enough to record it in case the guy made a threat. Let's take a quick listen.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
NORMAN THOMPSON: If I didn't know that you weren't a cop, I would have fought you, but I'm not getting no assault charge on a police officer.
DILLINGHAM: Right.
THOMPSON: I'm not stupid, all right?
(END AUDIOTAPE)
ROBERTS: Well, that might be in some question. But, you thought that this guy perhaps is going to come after you?
DILLINGHAM: Well, you never know. I mean, the police wanted him. He must have something going on.
ROBERTS: Yes. Well, I mean, he claims that he's nonviolent but at the same time said if he knew that you weren't a police officer he would have fought you off.
DILLINGHAM: That's kind of --
ROBERTS: So, what does your family think about all of this?
DILLINGHAM: The kids love it. The kids were actually arguing over who is going to bring the newspaper to school the next morning.
ROBERTS: Dad's a real hero.
DILLINGHAM: Yes.
ROBERTS: And if you had to do it again, because you might be put in that position, you said you've gone to hundreds of these things, the first time in 25 years, would you do it the same way or hang onto the camera and let the police do it in? DILLINGHAM: I'd probably do it again. If the guy was 6'9", 250, I might think twice about it but I definitely at least try.
ROBERTS: Well, Russ Dillingham, thanks for being with us this morning.
DILLINGHAM: It was a pleasure.
ROBERTS: Interesting little twist to your profession the other day. Good to have you here. Kiran.
CHETRY: Still ahead, you noticed that prices are going up while the weak dollar means that everything imported into our country is getting more expensive and it appears that we're buying a little less of it. Ali Velshi will explain. He's "Minding Your Business" coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ROBERTS: Four minutes now to the top of the hour. Ali Velshi "Minding your Business." What's the news with imports today?
ALI VELSHI, "MINDING YOUR BUSINESS:" Well, it's one of those economics lessons you don't actually need because you're actually doing this. There are two trends that you sort of need to keep track. One is that stuff, commodities have been getting more expensive for the last several years. Why? Because we use more of it. Things like oil, corn, food, and there's a lot of growth in the rest of the world as China and India get more prosperous, their citizens buy more of the things that we typically have saved for ourselves in the western world.
So pretty much any commodity you look at, any kind of grain, metal, things like that, have been going up. Now, we've also seen this other trend where, for the last couple of years we've seen the U.S. dollar weaken. When your currency weakens, it's not just about tourism. It's the fact that it costs you more to buy imported goods. So, now we're seeing a trend come to fruition. We are actually importing for the first time in a long time less goods and products than we used to. We're starting to see this at the nation's ports, a substantial drop. When I say substantial drop, it's 1 percent. But we haven't seen drops in imported goods coming in. Now, we're not as Americans buying a lot less stuff. So, the benefit here is that we may be buying some of these things that we were otherwise importing from American manufacturers, from American growers and you might actually start to see some benefit to American companies. We've always said that, when the dollar weakens, while some people think that it's a bad thing it might actually be good for U.S. industries. So, this is just one more example. There are reports that we're seeing less coming into our U.S. ports and that is just one more part of this trend about a weaker U.S. dollar and more expensive goods coming in from overseas.
ROBERTS: So, could that actually be an indicator of a slowing of the economy? VELSHI: Well, for now it's just a shifting of the economy to Americans buying more things that are locally made. Perfect example, a t-shirt at Wal-mart. If it sells for five bucks maybe it's a $3 t- shirt with $2 worth of shipping and freight and all of those kind of things. So, maybe they can start to buy that tee shirt closer to home or even in the United States. It's not a good example because we're probably not making a lot of t-shirts in America but as things become more expensive and the dollar becomes cheaper we start to think about shifting things to the United States. So it might not be a bad indicator. Yet to see.
ROBERTS: All right.
CHETRY: You know, Ali's famous for mixing pinstripes and checks sometimes, stripes.
VELSHI: You don't care. Yes, it's all the more the merrier.
CHETRY: I wonder if you can make a Southwest Airlines flight.
Because...
VELSHI: Are they giving people trouble again about boarding?
CHETRY: The fashion police are at it again. Check this one out. This is the latest clothing incident for Southwest Airlines. A passenger wearing a shirt with an off-color joke about his fishing prowess. He was told he could not board that flight while wearing that shirt.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE WINIECKI: It was like, "sir, either you turn your shirt inside out or change it, or I'm going to have to ask you to come off the plane." so to undress in front of 132 people to put a new shirt on, it's unbelievable embarrassment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHETRY: Well, at least two women also recently complained they were told to cover up by Southwest Airlines, including this woman. She was a Hooter's waitress, Kyla Ebbert.
ROBERTS: Kyla Ebbert?
CHETRY: Yes, Kyla Ebbert was embarrassed. There was another woman as well who is wearing a green low cut dress. She also was told that she would have to wrap a blanket around here or not get on the flight.
ROBERTS: So, we want to know what you think about all of these. Should the airlines be the fashion police. Cast your vote at cnn.com/am
Right now, here is the results. 30 percent of you say, yes they should. 70 percent overwhelmingly against saying no, they should not be the fashion police. We'll keep this open until 9:00 a.m. Easter time this morning and we'll check back in a little bit later on.
CHETRY: Kali, you're in the clear.
ALI: Thank you.
CHETRY: A story coming up that you can't miss, the new high tech tools to be able to spot trouble in your heart. In fact, we have it right there. It is an ultrasound that you can hold in your own hands. It is amazing. You remember how big these used to be back in the doctor's office. How does it work and can it help or work? Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to break it down for us. He's going to actually test it out on one of us.
ROBERTS: Technologies getting pretty incredible. We'll end up for you coming up because the next hour of AMERICAN MORNING starts right now.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.voxant.com
